


my footsteps, they hang in your hallways

by janie_tangerine



Series: some flowers bloom dead [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Canon Het Relationship, Childbirth, Dysfunctional Relationships, Guilt, Multi, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, What-If, everything you might expect if you read the Theon chapters in adwd, major spoilers for ASOS - AFFC - ADWD, this never happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-23
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:24:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>part one: where Robb goes back to Riverrun and has to deal with awful news about his wife's mother, waits for the outcome of Jeyne's pregnancy, has news of his brothers and can't stop thinking about Theon at any given time.</p>
<p>part two: where Davos doesn't fail his mission, Asha has things to tell her brother and Theon meets his mother after twelve years, has issues to deal with and differently from the last time he came to the Iron Islands, he just wants to go back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I drag the river and you're still there

**Author's Note:**

> This has now officially gotten out of my control and became some kind of monster. And this part is abysmally long, but it was just supposed to be Theon at first and then I realized I couldn't leave out what Robb was doing in the meantime so.. yeah. Story title is from the Horrible Crowes, chapter title is from Wallflowers. They aren't mine, I own zilch.

He had hoped that he would get some rest.

Robb should really stop assuming the best outcome. He really should. The moment he’s back at Riverrun, his great-uncle tells him that his wife’s mother is currently residing in Jaime Lannister’s former cell and his hopes of laying low for a while are gone in the blink of an eye.

“Jeyne’s _mother_?”

“It was your lady wife coming to us. Apparently she had understood that something was amiss – or well, she said that she became with child only after she stopped drinking some of the tea her mother brought her. And – you heard about the pregnancy being difficult.”

“I did, but –”

“Well, she asked for a maester to have a look at what she had been brought and apparently her mother had been feeding her something similar to moon tea. Probably having taken it for long hasn’t helped, even if at least she hasn’t had any since she found out she was with child. I had someone look through her correspondence and she had been in contact with Tywin Lannister from before your uncle’s wedding. She was to make sure that her daughter wouldn’t give you an offspring, and she’d have gone to some other Lannister lord after your uncle’s wedding.”

“Oh, for – how is Jeyne?”

“A lot better than she was a couple of months ago. Now there’s hoping that all her mother’s scheming won’t pay off.”

Robb doesn’t ask why he hadn’t been told – he knows why. If they had told him, he’d have come back at once, and in the situation he was in, it’d have been a suicidal move.

“Is there something else I should know before I go see my wife?”

The Blackfish shakes his head, and Robb figures that no news is better than bad news. “Fine. Uncle, will you please tell all the bannermen that I’ll see them on the morrow? And I’ll need to send ravens to all the ones that aren’t here - if you’ll be so kind to have some paper delivered to my wife’s room, I’ll have them ready tomorrow.”

“Very well.”

Robb spares a second for feeling deeply thankful that he has at least one member of his family with him that he can still trust to act responsibly, and then he heads for his and Jeyne’s room. The closer he gets, the more he can’t help thinking that he really, really ruined her – now even her own mother… he can’t even go there. Three months ago, he’d have blamed Theon all over.

Right now, he just blames himself. And Ramsay Snow. And Tywin Lannister. And Balon Greyjoy and both his stupid rebellions ( _no_ , his traitorous mind thinks, _it’s just the second that you resent_ ). And fine, he still blames Theon too, but knowing the circumstances has done a lot to make him realize that he wasn’t the only responsible one in there.

Then he decides that it isn’t time to dwell on that, and knocks on the door before entering the room.

Jeyne is on the bed and she turns slowly towards him, and he stops dead in his tracks. She doesn’t look too good, her face too thin for a woman with child, and her cheeks are flushed, but it doesn’t look like a healthy flush. Still, her lips curl up into a lovely smile the moment she sees him, and he tries to forget all the rest.

He grabs a chair, sits next to her, takes her hand in between both of his.

“You did manage to come then,” she whispers, her voice strained.

“I did, but – gods, I’m sorry. I hadn’t imagined that…” He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence and he settles to move one of his hands over her forehead, brushing sweaty hair from her face.

“Don’t be. She had no right,” Jeyne says. “I don’t know _why_ she would – but it’s no matter. I don’t regret it. I don’t regret _this_.” She moves her free hand over her belly, her thumb brushing over the cloth covering it.

“I’m still sorry. If I had known –”

“I was the one saying they shouldn’t tell you.”

For a moment Robb feels petrified. “Why? Jeyne, why would you even –”

“My lord, I might not be much experienced in matters of war, but after your uncle’s wedding, I knew your position would have been precarious. And don’t try to tell me that if you hadn’t married me, it still would have happened. You needed to be in the North. And I wasn’t going to keep you here for something you couldn’t have helped with.”

Robb doesn’t try to argue with that reasoning. She’s right, and she knows it. He shakes his head, sits next to her and as his lips meet hers, he hopes that at least what they have won’t turn sour. But when everything he has touched lately did, he can’t allow himself to hope too much.

\--

The following morning, he writes all the messages needing to be sent, and then he goes back to bed. There’s still a couple of hours before he meets his bannermen, after all. 

He doesn’t know _why_ , as he gets back under the covers, he can’t help wondering what’s happening on that ship. Has Theon arrived in Pyke yet (doubtful, it’s a longer trip than few days), how he’s faring (probably bad), how it’s going to end (hopefully better than it did the first time, but it wouldn’t take much). He wishes he could just stop thinking about him, but apparently it’s making him twitchy and Jeyne realizes it.

“There’s something on your mind,” she says.

“Nothing that should concern you.”

“Shouldn’t your concerns be mine, as well?”

She has a point. And she deserves the truth. If only Robb knew what the truth was. He turns on his side, putting a hand on her hip, careful not to jostle her swollen belly.

“Do you – do you remember the reason why… you and me fell into the same bed in the first place?”

“That… friend of yours killed your brothers. Wasn’t it?”

“Well. It turned out that he hasn’t killed them after all and that he wasn’t even the one to torch the castle.”

“How – how did it go, then?”

“My brothers had escaped, and they killed two commoners so that it wouldn’t seem as if he couldn’t hold the place. Little good it did to him, since Roose Bolton’s bastard proceeded to betray him and burn Winterfell. We found him in the Dreadfort. Theon, I mean.”

Jeyne pales at that. “And what did you do?”

“Well, I should have killed him. Except that the moment I knew, and after I saw what happened to him, I just fucking couldn’t. And now he’s my hostage all over again, in theory. Except that right now he’s going to the Iron Islands because after allying with his sister I promised her that I’d let him see his mother before she dies. And the point is that I have no idea of what I’m even doing.”

“You’re being a decent man,” Jeyne answers.

“Most people would ask me why I even care.”

“Most people wouldn’t have married me,” she says, but she doesn’t sound bitter or sad about it. It’s a fact, and Robb can’t argue with it. She’s right – most people wouldn’t have given a damn about either a spoiled maiden from a once great house (but not now) or an old woman who’ll probably be dead before the year is over.

Maybe he should just make peace with it. He’s never going to be able not to care.

“I’m still not sure about any of this. I should hate the sight of him instead. And I shouldn’t be burdening you with this.”

She gives him a tired smile, turning on her back and then slightly on her other side, so that she’s facing him. She reaches down, her fingers covering his. And he feels even more guilty about what has happened between him and Theon until this point – not that they ever did anything more than touching, and it was entirely harmless touching, but still. She should be the only person sharing his bed.

“I asked you first, hadn’t I? And – some would say that this is just a woman’s talking, and a woman who probably isn’t in her best mind right now, but it doesn’t seem that easy to me.”

“My lady? What do you mean with that?”

“From what I remember, you weren’t only devastated about your brothers. You were devastated about who you thought had killed them. Something tells me he wasn’t just someone you trusted with an envoy.”

“No. We grew up together. Mostly. He was my friend.”

“Then it only seems natural to me that you should want to forgive him.”

“I didn’t say anything about –”

“You wouldn’t be so troubled if you weren’t at least considering it.”

“Tell that to my bannermen. It’d make me seem weak.”

“Your bannermen might say that forgiveness is for women, aye. But you still want to.”

He sighs, figuring that denying it won’t be worth much. And he knows he can trust her. “What I want doesn’t really matter in this case. But yes, I think I do. Want that, I mean.”

She gives him an understanding nod while he thinks about what he had been reported about his father’s death. Joffrey had said that both his mother and Sansa had wanted him to allow Ned Stark to take the black. The little blonde prick had said that accepting that request would have been _weak_. Robb wishes he could find more pleasure in thinking that at least he isn’t that kind of person, but it doesn’t really change much.

“Here’s one that will not think less of you for it,” Jeyne says after a while, and her lips are wet and soft when he kisses them, trying not to force her to move abruptly.

\--

Before the meeting, he’s given a raven from Pyke. It’s from Asha Greyjoy. It says that they landed safely and that her brother is to sail for Harlaw on the next day, so that’s where he should address any ravens if wanting to communicate with Ser Davos. She adds that the kingsmoot will be held again in two, three weeks at most.

He sighs in relief for one moment, hoping that the trip to Harlaw goes smooth. He thinks about the way Theon would scream in his sleep back when he slept on the floor and he tries to silence the gnawing guilt he feels knotting his stomach, along with a voice in the back of his head that says _you should have gone with him_.

\--

“There will be no further problems from the North,” he says in front of a war council that’s half as big as it should be. Everyone who’s missing died at the Red Wedding, and Theon – he needs not to think about it.

“What about the Iron Islands?” Lord Mallister asks from the left of the table.

“They won’t be a nuisance for now. Asha Greyjoy is going to stay true to the pacts. I had a raven from her this morning – she might be in charge in a month or so, and if that happens, then we have a fleet. I wouldn’t have many doubts about that, since she’s pretty much the only valid contender in the run. Now, will someone tell me how the situation has been here?”

The Blackfish stands up, clears his throat. “The Umbers have their hands tied – the Freys still have your uncle and the Greatjon. Not to mention that from what I hear, sweet Roslin Frey is with child and due soon.”

Robb nods, trying not to curse out loud. As if they needed one more complication. “That said, I’m sure you know about Tywin Lannister’s demise. That might make things a lot easier for us. I have a couple of men in King’s Landing and they tell me that at court things aren’t faring as well as they would like to make the rest of the world think.”

“What do you mean?” Stannis asks from Robb’s right. His eyes are focused and he seems to be thinking of a strategy already.

“I mean that the king is merely a token in his mother’s hands and Cersei Lannister is no idiot, but she’s not her father, either. And considering how did her eldest’s reign go, the smallfolk might get her themselves before we strike. Sure, she’s allied with the Tyrells, and Dorne isn’t against them either, but as things are, we could do worse. My suggestion is taking some time to regroup and work on freeing the Frey hostages before going for King’s Landing – let the woman ruin herself with her own hands first.”

Robb turns towards Stannis – it’s not as if he can ignore his opinion. “My lord, what would you say?”

“I say I wouldn’t attack King’s Landing directly without being sure of the outcome. Ser Brynden obviously knows what he’s talking about and I could use time to gather my own bannermen at Storm’s End while you deal with the Freys.”

When the both of them agree, no one has objections. Robb sighs, knowing that his next questions will not have answers.

“There are no news of my sisters either, are they?”

The Blackfish shakes his head. “Arya seems disappeared into thin air. Sansa was still in King’s Landing until Tyrion Lannister’s trial ended, but she was gone the same night he disappeared. People say they have escaped together after plotting the king’s death, but other than not believing your sister capable of that, there’s nothing telling us otherwise. And she’s still not to be found.”

Robb wants to punch the table in frustration, but doesn’t let himself. He needs to show restraint. “Very well,” he sighs. “We shall meet again soon to discuss strategies about the Freys. Before leaving, though… how many prisoners are there in the dungeons, right now?”

“About two hundred,” the Blackfish says after thinking about it.

“Do we strictly need any of them?”

“Not really. There’s no one who’s worthy of a ransom, but most of them had been captured during battles, not arrested for specific crimes.”

“Send them all to the Wall then. They need more men, urgently, and I doubt they’ll get help from King’s Landing. If they don’t want to take the black, just tell them that they’ll have to serve there until the emergency is over and then they’ll be pardoned, if they’re still alive.”

Which, if what Jon had written him about the Others is true, is definitely not a given, but he’ll worry about that when it’s time. No one objects to his decision either and the reunion is called off. 

\--

He spends the following day in Jeyne’s room. She’s not awake for most of the time – she’s obviously fatigued, and Robb feels horrible whenever he thinks that she doesn’t have that certain glow which Robb remembers on his own lady mother when she was pregnant with Arya, Bran and Rickon. Then again, his mother hadn’t been fed poison before and during her pregnancies, hadn’t she.

Some of the bannermen he had sent ravens to, asking about his missing brothers, send answer quickly enough, but without any news. When he isn’t pacing, he curls up against Jeyne’s back in the bed, his hands never straying farther than her hips.

“What should I do with your mother?” he asks when he can’t stop himself anymore. He doesn’t want to think that Jeyne might not survive labor, but if that happens, then he needs to know. And he won’t choose without having her opinion.

Jeyne gives him a small, sad laugh. “I don’t think that there’s another man in the seven kingdoms who’d have asked that.”

“I asked – I asked _Theon_ for his opinion about letting him go to Pyke or not when according to every law I should have killed him, it stands to reason that I’d pay you the same courtesy.” Sometimes he thinks that he has learned nothing. There was a reason why _he_ was the one out of all the self-proclaimed kings in Westeroswho was almost tricked into going to a wedding that would have ended in blood and where he’d have died as a guest. If he had gone. He knows that he’s been too trusting, he knows that honor brings you nothing in this world ( _look at how your father died_ ), but he can’t do anything more than acknowledging it. He doesn’t want to be a ruthless conqueror, he never wanted to be a king. He can’t start to hate himself just because being honest doesn’t pay off. Not that being dishonorable pays off that much more – look at how it went with Theon. Then again, he’s being unfair. Theon hadn’t even technically turned his cloak, he still was a _hostage_ , and he always lacked patience. Not to mention that he never was one to think about the consequences of his action. He remembers Theon bending the knee to him at the Dreadfort and he remembers tears staining his own cloak – no, that hadn’t paid off indeed.

(Why can’t he stop thinking about Theon in the first place?)

“Couldn’t you – send her away?” Jeyne asks, quietly.

“I can arrange to find someone that will lock her up in a tower for as long as needed, if that’s what you meant.”

“It was. I don’t want her dead, she’s my mother, but – I don’t want to see her again anytime soon if I can help it.”

Robb nods against her neck, feeling drowsy. Maybe he could close his eyes for a moment, but –

There’s a sharp knock on the door and he forces himself to stand up. There’s his uncle outside, a message in his hand.

“This arrived from White Arbor ten minutes ago. I think you want to read it at once.”

Robb takes it with shaking fingers and when he reads it, he has to go through it thrice before starting to process it.

_Your Grace,_

_I received your message, and I suppose that it’s time you’re told. I haven’t said anything until now, but you will understand that I wanted to keep this hidden until I was sure that it was safe to say. Your youngest brother Rickon and the wildling woman that was traveling with him were found at White Arbor’s port maybe two weeks after Winterfell’s destruction. Along with the turncloak’s squire, who had been following them and somehow found a way to alert one of my men. The woman was searching for a passage to Skaagos, but after she was brought to the castle, she agreed that staying hidden here would have been a better option. She doesn’t know about your other brother, I’m afraid, though she confirmed that he went north along with Howland Reed’s children. You may come whenever you wish, and they’ll both be safe until you do. If you prefer to send someone for your brother, that can be arranged._

It has Lord Manderly’s signature, and for a single, blessed moment, Robb feels elated. The Manderlys always were his house’s allies and he has no reasons to doubt the letter. Knowing that at least one of his brothers is alive and well makes his heart swell with happiness, and he wonders if he couldn’t go to White Arbor himself – it wouldn’t take too long.

“Jeyne!” he exclaims, turning towards her. “Jeyne, this is – Jeyne?”

The words die in his throat when she moans in displeasure, and when he runs towards the bed and lifts her skirt and sees the sheets wet with water and a trickle of blood, he goes pale.

“Uncle, fetch a maester,” he almost shouts, and he holds her hand until one gets there and he’s dragged out of the room.

He spends the next six hours outside it, sitting on a chair, wanting to cry whenever he hears Jeyne scream in pain. Whenever a woman comes out of the room in order to change her bucket, he sees water stained with blood and it does nothing to make him feel better. And now he can’t to White Arbor himself, not when his wife’s _mother_ had tried to poison her. No one guarantees that there isn’t some Lannister spy about the castle, and if they could orchestrate his uncle’s wedding, there’s no reason to think that they’d be above killing children.

He sighs, asks for quill and paper. He writes a heartfelt response to Lord Manderly, and closes it saying that he can’t come at once, but that he will the moment he can and to please keep the matter secret. No one else needs to know about it, just in case.

He’s about to fall asleep on his chair out of frustration when suddenly he hears another kind of crying. A child’s cry, and his heart starts beating faster. He waits for ten minutes and knocks on the door. A maid lets him in, nodding towards the bed. Jeyne is lying over it, a sheet covered in blood between her legs, but she’s breathing, even if she doesn’t look well. And then he sees the maester come towards him with something small clutched between his arms.

“Your Grace,” he says when he’s in front of him. “You have a daughter.”

For a split moment Robb feels both happy and sad at once – a son would have given him a proper heir, but maybe a girl will be less likely to be targeted – but the moment he sees his own eyes staring up at him he forgets about inheritances. She’s beautiful – she has Jeyne’s darker hair, he thinks, and she looks well and healthy.

“Is – is she well? And my lady wife?” He’s aware that his voice is trembling, but he can’t exactly force himself to sound like a king right now.

“The child is as healthy as a newborn can be. About your lady wife… it wasn’t an easy labor.” _As if I don’t know that. I was right outside, I had gotten that far_ , Robb thinks. “She lost a lot of blood, but she could have died and she’s still among us. I will change the sheets and see to her after we find a wet nurse – I didn’t have the time to search for one right now.”

“Of course. Yes. You have my thanks.”

Before the maester (damn, Robb should ask someone to remind him his name) can hand the child over to one of the maids, Robb shakes his head. “I’ll take her.”

She’s so tiny and warm, Robb thinks, but he can’t help staring down at her. Gods, and to think that if Jeyne hadn’t realized it –

“Your Grace?” the maester asks. “How do you wish to call her? If you have a name, of course.”

Robb hadn’t even thought about names, and he hadn’t asked Jeyne if she wanted one in particular, but as he looks into his daughter’s eyes, he already knows the answer.

“Catelyn,” he answers.

\--

The next day, he’s told that Jeyne is running a fever and that she’s in the hands of the gods.

Then he gets two letters from Harlaw. One is from Lord Rodrik. It confirms him that Theon and Ser Davos arrived safely at some point during the previous night, and it’s more courteous than Robb would have expected. Then there’s a line about Lord Rodrik’s sister that makes Robb realize that Theon might have to stay there longer than he had thought.

The second letter, written in not exactly steady penmanship, is from Ser Davos.

_Your Grace._

_The trip was as smooth as I could hope for; the place is as wretched as I remember from the Rebellion._

_Your hostage is doing well enough, though he could fare better. If you have any specific request concerning him, let me know._

Nothing else except from a scribble that could pass for a signature, but from what Robb remembers, this comes from a man grown who learned to read and write less than two years ago – he isn’t expecting him to waste time with unnecessary words. He glances at his daughter sleeping in a small crib that must have been built when Sansa was her age and then he finds three pieces of paper. On the first he writes a short note to Lord Harlaw, on the second a longer one for Ser Davos and then he looks down at the third. He thinks about it for one second, then figures that playing it safe is the best course of action.

_Your uncle sent me a raven explaining the situation. Stay there as long as you think you need. I’ll be in Riverrun for the foreseeable future – when you come back, come here unless I write with a change of location. Also, you might want to know that Lord Manderly was hiding my brother Rickon in White Arbor, along with your former squire._

No one would deduce a thing from it. It’s all facts and no emotion.

And then he realizes that maybe – maybe _that_ was the problem. He curses himself for falling into that trap all over again, but he can’t help it. He thinks about how Theon must feel right now – he’s going back to the place where most of his problems began, he hasn’t seen his mother in twelve years or so and who knows if she’ll even recognize him, and when he left he was nowhere near fine. And not just mentally – that kind of trip has to be exhausting, for someone who can’t even walk without feeling pain at any given time. If he sends the letter like this, it’ll seem as if he doesn’t care. And Theon should know better, but he hadn’t known better when he was _well_.

 _I’m still waiting_ , he adds under the rest. Still nothing that would be deemed suspicious, but enough to show that he hasn’t forgotten. And then he puts his name in the small, free corner on the right. He hasn’t signed the one to Ser Davos and he had put his surname, too, in the one for Lord Harlaw.

He seals all the messages before he can think twice of it and hands them over to a servant to have them sent.

\--

Two days later, he has barely slept. Jeyne is still sick, though she’s conscious for small periods of time now – she doesn’t make much sense when she is, but Robb will take what he can get and he moves permanently into her room. Their daughter is there when she isn’t with the wet nurse and during the nights (the maester was worried that constant screaming wouldn’t be good for Jeyne’s condition), but Robb had insisted for her to stay in the closest room. And while the screaming doesn’t change much for Jeyne either way, it doesn’t make him sleep. It’s muffled, sure, and not as strong as it would be, and it just makes him spend more time than he should thinking about how _Theon_ used to try and drown his screaming against the blankets while he slept on the ground.

Between that and worrying over Jeyne, he can’t sleep at all.

And that’s when he gets the second letter. When he’s delivered a message from the Wall sometime before dawn, he’s so tired that he’s almost sure that he’s hallucinating while reading it. But then he re-reads it again twice, thrice, and he doesn’t know that he’s crying tears of relief until they fall on the small piece of paper.

_Robb,_

_I have news about Bran. One of my sworn brothers met him a few months ago but never said anything until now because he had promised he wouldn’t. I’ll spare you the details, it’s too long a story, but they met at the Black Gate while Sam was coming back from beyond the Wall. He says he met Bran, Hodor and the Reed children, and they asked him to let them pass so they could go North. Then they made him swear he wouldn’t tell anyone, but back then Ramsay Snow was still alive as far as we all knew, and he only felt safe telling the truth just when he was sure that you were back in your rightful place. If you’re wondering whether it might be a lie, I can guarantee that it’s not – he can be trusted. The moment he told me I sent out a search party – there are a few wildlings in between and they know the land beyond the Wall better than we do. Hopefully I’ll have better news for you soon, but I thought you would want to know. Do what you want with it, though maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell anyone else until we know more for sure._

_Jon_

\--

Jeyne’s fever breaks on the fifth day, and clearly Robb finds out about it some four hours later – he had been going over strategies to free his uncle and the other hostages from the Twins without risking to have them killed for the entire afternoon and no one had interrupted the council. When he runs back to their room and finds Jeyne holding their daughter to her chest, he wishes he had been here before.

“How are you feeling, my lady?” he asks, his voice sounding too hoarse for his own tastes.

“Not as bad as I could.”

“I hope you didn’t have another name in mind,” he says as sits at her side.

“I have no problems with the one you chose. I hadn’t thought about names either, for that matter.”

Robb feels relieved for a moment, also because he can’t tell her that he’ll let her choose the one for their next child. From what he was told, it’d be highly unadvisable to try for more than the one they have.

Not as if he cares – gods, it’s not as if his main problem is the lack of male offspring. He wishes it was.

\--

Three days later, he gets another raven from Ser Davos.

_We’ll most probably be in Riverrun about a week from now. Maybe a week and three days._

Against his better judgment, after writing a note saying that he’ll be waiting for them, he caves.

 _How is he?_ , he writes on the bottom of the message.

The answer arrives in two days.

_He looks the same as he had when we left._

_The rest isn’t better, either._

\--

He spends that night sleepless, cursing himself as he turns in his bed. Jeyne is shivering on the other side of it, and he doesn’t dare coming closer – she’s still a bit feverish and she doesn’t seem to like to be touched. Differently from –

_Damn._

He needs to stop it. He needs to stop wondering why he’s feeling drained, relieved, angry and almost happy at the same time. The first probably needs no explanations – he hasn’t slept much at all since he came back. He’s relieved because he knows for sure that Theon is coming back this time. Not that it matters, not that it should, and not as if Robb thought it wouldn’t happen, but still. The anger is mostly towards himself because he should just not give a damn, but that part of him isn’t as loud as it used to be.

And the last one – seven hells, he doesn’t want to say that he wants Theon back here, but the more he thinks about it, the more he knows it’s true. Maybe it’s that he knows for sure that he never killed either Bran or Rickon and that at least one of them is alive and safe. Maybe it’s that the one thing he wants is just to go back to how things were, when Winterfell was whole, his sisters weren’t missing, Jon wasn’t wearing black and with all the faults, they had been fine. It seems like a dream right now, and he knows that if he ever puts back the picture together there will be missing pieces (his parents, for one). They aren’t even the same anymore – him and Jon have hardened, they _had_ to. He doesn’t want to think about how Sansa must have felt, with all her dreams of marrying a noble knight shattered (and he never could ransom her, if only that mad idea of his mother’s had paid off in the end). About Arya, he’s starting to despair that he’ll ever find out where she is. Both Bran and Rickon have lost a childhood, and Theon - well. He paid some price for his actions. He still longs for it anyway, and he should hate himself for it, but he can’t. He has already accepted that he isn’t made of steel – he might as well accept the consequences.

He had said it out loud, _I miss you_ , and it was the truth, but how is he supposed to act? He can’t behave the same way he had in the Dreadfort and in Winterfell or at Deepwood Motte, but what else should he do? Oh, he should keep his distance, he knows that, but it’s not what will make things better. If only he had a pretext to pardon Theon he probably would take it, at least to stop with this hostage farce, but he doesn’t have one and his men would have his head.

He’s sick of seeing people he loves in pain, he thinks. He’s sick of knowing that the ones that aren’t here with him aren’t much better off. And he’s sick of not being able to do anything about it.

\--

The day Theon is supposed to arrive along with Ser Davos, he spends hours going through useless maps and pondering about how to treat with the Freys. He’s tempted to just storm into the Twins and kill everyone happening to be inside, he’d have the rights to fucking do it, but that doesn’t save the hostages or his uncle, and he’s not going to risk the life of his mother’s only living brother.

Or his heir’s, gods.

When he tells a couple of servants to prepare the room at the opposite end of the hallway where his and Jeyne’s is, he tries to drown his guilt. He has another one prepared for Ser Davos, too – Stannis should be back in a week at most and going back and to Storm’s End would be just a waste of time.

Not even the sight of Jeyne finally being well enough to nurse their daughter (she had insisted) is enough to make him forget what’s going to happen this evening.

“What troubles you so?” Jeyne asks when he sits at her side. His tongue feels dry – he doesn’t even know how to put it into words.

“It’s – he’s coming back today. Or tonight.” No need to say who _he_ is.

Jeyne gives him a nod, her hand cradling the baby’s head.

“I don’t know what to do.” There. He said it.

“Is there something you want to do?”

“Not what would be proper.”

“If he’s your hostage, doing anything at all would hardly be proper, wouldn’t it?”

Which is also a perfectly good point. Whatever he does that isn’t ignoring Theon won’t be proper indeed, but ignoring him is out of the question. He isn’t that cruel.

And maybe she also deserves the whole truth.

“No, but hostages don’t usually share their bed with their keepers.” His voice is barely audible, and he’s almost pathetically thankful when her eyes don’t turn cold the moment he says it. “Not – not in the way men and women do,” he adds quickly. Not that they _haven’t_ done that, too, sometimes and years ago, but it’s not the point now. “It’s just – it seemed the only thing I could do to help, I guess. But it’s not – I can’t. I already felt horrible about it, but I can’t now.”

“Because of me?” she asks, her voice still carefully neutral.

“It’s not you. It’s a question of duties. I shouldn’t have done that in the first place.”

“And we shouldn’t have slept with each other in the first place. Don’t get me wrong. I told you, I don’t regret any of it.” She glances down at Catelyn, and you couldn’t argue with that statement.

“Do you think that I do?”

“I know that you don’t. But I also can’t begrudge you. You wouldn’t be so concerned for someone you only hate or don’t care for. And I know you enough – I would be foolish if I assumed that you could force yourself to change your feelings just because you think you should. I said I wouldn’t think less of you if you forgave him, I won’t think less of you for sharing a bed with someone else. Isn’t that what you would do for a sibling?”

“Yes, but –”

“Well, I remember you asking all over how could he do that when he was like a brother to you.”

Robb finds that he has no counter answer for that. And his resolve to do the right thing won’t hold much longer, especially since he isn’t too sure of what would the right thing be in this case.

\--

Catelyn is crying as Jeyne picks her up, and Robb is about to ask if she needs help when he hears another scream coming from down in the hall. For a moment both him and Jeyne freeze. Their daughter squirms in Jeyne’s arms, wanting attention. There’s no question of where it came from, and Robb feels sick. From Jeyne’s face, he can see that she had the same impression. He thinks about how Theon had looked when he came into the solar not two hours before now. Tired. So very tired. And looking as if he could barely stand up.

“Was – was that what you meant before?” she asks, her voice low.

Robb thinks about how pained that scream sounded. “Yes. I couldn’t exactly turn on my side and go back to sleep at that.”

He tries not to think about how that would never happen when they shared the bed.

“You want to go,” Jeyne says. It’s not a question.

“Jeyne, I’m not – I should be here.”

“Maybe, but I don’t need you here. I can take care of her. And if I need help, I can call servants, or the wet nurse, or the maester. Of course it’s better if you’re here, but… I have other people that can help me. Something tells me that he has only you.”

“And – are you sure that –”

“I don’t know him, but you do. If you think you should go, then go. I told you, I don’t expect you to do anything else. And I wouldn’t want you to be different.”

He nods, his throat closed. He doesn’t know if he can speak, so he kisses her forehead first and her mouth after.

“I’ll be back in the morning,” he manages to say. She gives him a small smile before turning her head down towards Catelyn, and Robb walks down the hall instead. He stops for a moment out of the door. He can hear Theon breathing, the same way someone would when trying not to lose their temper. The gods know that Robb doesn’t want to imagine what he has dreamed about, but something tells him it was related to whatever Theon couldn’t tell, the time Robb asked what happened to him. He breathes in and opens the door. He feels Theon going rigid in the bed rather than seeing him and for a moment he thinks that he should bolt and run.

But – he thinks of all the other nights, he thinks about what Jeyne said ( _he has only you_ ). He thinks that it’s been almost a month and about what Ser Davos had written – _he isn’t any better_. And gods help him, she was right. If he just didn’t care either way, he wouldn’t be aching to raise the covers and join Theon there, he wouldn’t be aching to salvage what can be salvaged.

Tomorrow they’ll talk, and maybe they’ll come closer to sort it out. For now, he silences his guilt, takes off his clothes and steps forward.


	2. you remember the faces, the places, the names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Bruce Springsteen. I don't own them, everything belongs to GRRM.

He can’t help himself from staring.

He knows he shouldn’t, but wondering about how Ser Davos lost his fingers is better than thinking about how he lost his own.

It’s been three days since they sailed and three days of Theon being unable not to look at the Onion Knight’s hand before Ser Davos says something about it. He probably noticed it after the first two times, though.

“There’s something you wish to ask me,” Ser Davos tells him while they’re standing on the rails. The sun is about to set on the horizon line.

“If m’lord doesn’t mind,” he answers, keeping his eyes down and his voice low.

Ser Davos raises an eyebrow. “I’m no lord.”

“But you’re Hand of the king.”

“Sure, and I learned to read and write after he decided I was suited for that position. I’m no one’s lord, and I’m not yours for sure.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for? And what is that you wanted to ask me?”

“Your – I was wondering how did you lose your fingers.”

“Oh. His Grace did it,” Ser Davos answers. He tells Theon the entire story, and it leaves Theon feeling even more lost than before.

“And you were fine with it?”

“He wasn’t wrong. Smuggling is still a crime. He took those fingers for that, all right, but they were two useless fingers in a hand that I don’t favor, and he didn’t even take them whole. In exchange I gained a knighthood, a real ship and a nice keep, and I could raise my children better than I would have otherwise. They learned how to read and write when I didn’t. It was… a just exchange. Not to mention that he gave me a choice. Which I suspect wasn’t given to you.”

Theon looks down at his own hand, at the angry, red scars that are where his fingers should have been. It hadn’t been a clean cut.

He shudders. “No, but I still asked for it. And I had to thank him when he was done.”

Ser Davos doesn’t say anything and Theon turns his eyes towards the sea. It had looked so lovely last time, it had felt so freeing to sail home. Now it all feels like another one of the prisons he has been thrown in for his entire life.

And it’s almost shameful, to think that he’d rather be wherever Robb is. But he’s past caring and past shame.

“May I ask _you_ something?” Ser Davos inquires.

“Of course, m’l – I mean, yes. Sure.”

“How old are you?”

His bones ache in places where they shouldn’t. “Two and twenty.”

“Good gods,” Ser Davos whispers. “I had sons your age.” He doesn’t say _and I don’t get how could your father let that happen to you_ , but Theon thinks he heard that anyway and for a moment he feels hot tears burning beneath his eyelids. He forces himself not to cry, but what should one think when a perfect stranger (who happens to seem a decent person) shows you more empathy than your own blood ever did?

“I think I’ll turn in,” he says before turning his back to the rails and heading for the small cabin he had been given.

It’s quite cramped, but the bed is comfortable and that’s all he needs. He takes off his shoes carefully, not looking at his feet; then he throws his cloak over the bed and covers it with the two heavy blankets that were there to begin with before crawling under the covers.

He wishes he could melt against the mattress, and there are no captains’ daughters to share the bed with this time. His body shakes and he wishes that Robb was here, and then Theon curses himself for even thinking about that. Robb has a _wife_ (whose name rhymes with _pain_ , but Theon tries not to think about that too much), and it doesn’t matter that for now he’s been gracious enough to put up with him – that madness that is the two of them sharing a bed will end the moment he’s back at Riverrun, and that’s how it should be.

He doesn’t deserve any of that anyway. He doesn’t deserve Robb’s kind eyes or Robb’s careful touch or Robb’s seemingly endless capacity for forgiveness. Or at least his patience. He can’t help the images going through his head now, though – Robb saying he misses him, Robb saying that he wants to fix it, Robb who wants him to be the only thing that Theon thinks he can’t be for him.

He closes his eyes, his head pounding.

 _Your name is Theon_ , he thinks over and over, _your name is Theon and you spit in his face the first time_ he _called you Reek, and that’s all Robb wants you to be, and it shouldn’t be this hard_. If he could beg for someone to cut his fingers, how hard can everything else be? The entire thing seems crazier with every passing moment – his mother will never recognize him, what’s he going to Pyke for anyway? And if she does recognize him, it’ll probably be what kills her.

Except that Robb was right. _Your sister says she keeps on asking for you_ , he had said, and Theon had known that he had to go.

He falls asleep a while later, forcing himself to think about the way Robb’s arm would feel against his waist rather than about all the nights he spent in the Dreadfort.

\--

He doesn’t leave the cabin when he wakes up. There’s no window, so he can’t deduce the time from the sun’s position, but it doesn’t exactly matter. He isn’t hungry and the bed is small but warm, and he doesn’t move until the urge to relieve himself becomes too strong. He sighs as he stands up, missing the blankets’ warmth at once.

They weren’t as warm as Robb’s arms, but that’s not the matter, is it? When he walks out in the open, he thinks that it has to be late morning. There’s strangely no one around the part of the dock he’s on, so he’s quick to move closer to the rail and free his cock from his breeches. He tucks it back in quickly when he’s done, grateful for the dock’s emptiness. He should find some water, at least, but he doesn’t feel like asking anyone, or searching for it.

“Your sister wants to see you.”

Theon gasps before jerking to his left. Ser Davos is there, and he hadn’t heard him coming. Then again, his reflexes aren’t in great shape, these days.

“Where?”

“At her quarters.” He hands Theon a skin of water, wordlessly. Theon takes it, drinks down half of it.

“My thanks,” he mumbles while handing it back. Then he heads for Asha’s quarters – or better, what’d be the captain’s room. Two years ago, he’d have felt outraged at being relegated to what is obviously a place where at most someone from the crew would sleep, but right now he just doesn’t care. He only hopes to be done with whatever Asha wants from him as soon as possible.

She’s sitting on a bed that looks a lot more comfortable than his own when he comes in, but she stands up as soon as she sees him.

“Asha? Did you want something?”

“Yes. A word first, though.”

He sits on the bed, leaving a distance between them. She takes a breath, looks at him, and he hates the pity in her stare. But how should she look at him, anyway? He can’t expect more, but he could expect less.

“I owe you an apology.”

“Sorry?” He isn’t sure he heard right.

“Do you think that I wanted things to go like this, as well? I knew that you’d most likely come back at some point. And when you did, I wanted to earn my rights the same way I earned my ship and my men. Like this, I can only feel as if I stole those rights.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, it damn well _does_. With me accepting the terms you brought Father and all.”

“Then you can blame him instead of yourself.” Theon sighs – he wishes he could not think about his father, but as things are, he has to. “In your place, I’d have done the same. And of course he wouldn’t have wanted me to inherit, I wasn’t the heir in the first place. I was the last, wasn’t I.”

“Fine, but do you think that I can feel proud about any of this when I owe it to fucking Robb Stark, and when _he_ went and rescued you when he had all the reasons to cut off your head?”

Theon should feel vindicated. But for now, he just feels fucking sad.

“Sister, don’t mind that too much. I wasn’t expecting you to ransom me – why should it have been your priority?” _I was hoping my father would_ , he doesn’t say. It took him three weeks to bury that hope somewhere deep. “Never mind that _he_ was the one finding me in the end. Never mind that I let him down when no one else trusted me much.”

“That’s why you will go back, won’t you?” She sounds carefully neutral now. Theon doesn’t even try to lie about the way it is.

“Sister, even if I didn’t want to, what else would I do? It might have taken a lot, but I learned what lost causes are. It’s not my place anymore. If it ever was.”

“I understand,” she answers softly. “I get it. But I’m still sorry that it went this way. If it’s worth anything.”

“It is,” he replies, not daring to say more. This conversation is verging on becoming too much for him to handle.

“That said – the maester on the ship, he said he could fix your teeth. Or do something for them.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has a number of false ones that might replace yours. I figured you’d want to know. He says it’s a painful procedure, but false ones might be better than none.”

Theon doesn’t like the sound of _painful procedure_ , but on the other side… it’d mean being able to eat properly again, and he could stop worrying about how horrible must the gaps between his remaining teeth look. And it’s obvious that Asha is somehow trying to apologize or what passes for it, and he can’t turn that away.

“I’ll talk to him,” he answers, and Asha calls the man in.

\--

Six agonizing hours later, the gaps are filled with silver. The maester had both gold and silver false teeth, but the idea of showing gold teeth to the rest of the world, the same way a sellsword would, made him feel ridiculous, and so silver it was. He had refused milk of the poppy or dreamwine – the last time he had both of those, it was because after one of his toes got cut it had ended up infected and he had ended up feverish. He doesn’t remember much about what happened then, but what little he does remember makes him want to hurl, and he hadn’t wanted to risk recalling more.

So he had stayed awake the entire time and it had _hurt_.

His jaw and gums still hurt, to be entirely truthful, but the maester assured him that it’d last a couple of days at most, and what’s two days in comparison to months? Still, it’d hurt to eat, and so instead of having dinner he goes back to the rails.

Ser Davos joins him a short while later.

“Shouldn’t you be downstairs?” Theon asks.

“I already ate and it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable dinner. Here,” he says, handing him something wrapped in a piece of cloth.

Theon takes it, opening it carefully. There’s a lemoncake inside, same as the ones Sansa used to like. It was obviously baked a short while ago and it’s still soft and fresh.

“I thought you could handle that one,” Ser Davos adds, and Theon feels a fit to his heart. It’s ridiculous, something so stupid shouldn’t make him feel like this, and he knows it’s just common courtesy, but he can’t help it.

“Thanks. You didn’t have to.”

“I didn’t, but if I were you, I wouldn’t skip on meals.”

Theon doesn’t comment on that and takes a bite from the lemoncake. It’s soft enough that biting down on it doesn’t hurt, and chewing is bothersome, but he went through a lot worse. He tries to take his time with it, but being able to eat relatively without pain and the bittersweet taste are too much of a temptation – he’s done with it in less than a couple of minutes.

“Thank you,” he blurts out again. He probably sounds ridiculous, his voice dripping gratefulness for such a stupid thing, but it’s beyond him.

“Don’t trouble yourself. By the way, they don’t look bad on you. The silver teeth, I mean.”

Theon nods in acknowledgment, muttering something about feeling tired and turning in. When he sits on the bed with his head in his hands he tries to breathe in and calm himself down, but it’s useless – the closer they get the more nervous he gets, and on top of that he’s still feeling shaken because of that stupid lemoncake.

Oh, he’s not complaining. All the contrary. At least he’s traveling with someone who doesn’t look at him as if he’d rather see him dead. He’ll take what he can get.

He forces himself to calm down and not to think that they’ll get to Pyke in some three days, and when he doesn’t feel as if he’s lacking air anymore he takes off his shoes and cloak before getting under the covers again. It almost physically aches not to feel Robb’s presence next to him, and he feels even more pathetic. As if it’s ever going to happen again. He should just get used to it already.

\--

Two days later, he drags himself out of the cabin, feeling like he could hurl any second. The previous nights weren’t that great, but during the last one he has slept decently for maybe one hour, and for the rest he only had a series of progressively worse nightmares. The sunlight makes his head ache and the smell of salt isn’t helping either. He knows he must look terrible, and they’re arriving in the afternoon.

At least he’ll be on dry land.

He leans on the rails, looking down at the sea, his lips cracked. He wants to go get some water, but he doesn’t feel like moving an inch.

“Here,” he hears from his left. It’s Ser Davos with his skin of water, again, and Theon is half-sure that he won’t get through this with his dignity intact.

“Obligated,” he croaks before drinking the entire thing down at once. He doesn’t look at Ser Davos while handing it back. He isn’t sure he wants to see how he’s looking at him.

“Lad, you look like someone who’s just seen the Stranger in the face. Something tells me I’m not that wrong, am I?”

“The Stranger would have been better. You meet that one only once and it’s quick,” Theon mutters. At least he’s not thirsty anymore, is he.

“Have you signed those papers your sister needs already?”

“Yes. Why’s that?”

“Don’t mind me. I think I have to talk to her – and if I were you, I’d go downstairs. They should have some food left from last evening.”

Theon nods as Ser Davos leaves, but he doesn’t go downstairs. The mere idea of moving is turning his stomach upside down.

\--

Pyke’s port looks somewhat gloomy – it might be that it’s dark already and that the weather isn’t that good either, but in comparison to when he came back for the first time, it seems like a dead city. He can see his father’s castle in the distance and he doesn’t feel any urge to go closer. Now it’s probably even emptier and less welcoming than it had been in the first place.

To think it felt like home once, and then it did again for a handful of blessed minutes.

He expects to go with Asha and her men, but he’s surprised when he sees her and Ser Davos bringing two horses towards him while the others are organizing themselves in order to start on the main road.

“Aren’t we going with them?” he asks, confused.

“Our mother is at Harlaw, not here,” Asha replies. “And now it’s too late to sail again, but I have to go back to Pyke and settle a couple of things before morning. You and him can leave tomorrow, there’s a ship sailing at midday, but for now have these. There’s an inn some four miles down the road. I’ll send our uncle a raven as soon as I’m in the castle so that he knows to expect you. And I gave Ser Seaworth a parchment that should let you through if anyone asks questions. Just – send word before you go back to Riverrun or wherever Robb Stark happens to be.”

“Of course. Well – good luck with the kingsmoot, sister.”

Asha gives him a tight nod before turning back to the other men. When she’s gone, Theon turns towards Ser Davos.

“It was your idea, wasn’t it?”

“You didn’t look like someone who’d have appreciated another day of sailing. Stopping one night won’t make much of a difference and I swore my king that I’d bring you back alive. Now, _my_ king would be perfectly fine with you merely being able to stand on your feet, but Robb Stark won’t like it if you come back looking worse than you did when you left. Let’s find that inn.”

Theon mounts on the horse, his feet hurting all over, and follows Ser Davos down the road after covering his head with the cloak. No one will recognize him, but better safe than sorry. He should keep his mouth shut, he knows, but he can’t help it again.

“What did you mean with… when you said that His Grace the king in the North wouldn’t have liked it if I came back looking worse?”

“I meant that for anyone who knows how to use his eyes, among which I wouldn’t count most of Lord Stark’s bannermen, it’s pretty obvious that he’s only pretending he doesn’t care either way about how your well-being.”

Theon gasps at that, and Ser Davos shakes his head, looking back at him. “Don’t fret, lad. My liege lord only suspects it, and it’s not as if he’d do anything about it either way. You’re not his prisoner. And I won’t be the one confirming his suspicions. It’s not my business.”

Theon has no answer for that, except for the _thank you_ he has been saying repetitively, so he says nothing until they get to the inn. Ser Davos goes inside to discuss with the innkeeper and he waits; ten minutes later, everything is apparently settled. He leaves the horse to the innkeeper and follows Ser Davos to the first floor. There’s a clean room with two beds and not much else, but when he sits on the bed Theon finds it a lot more comfortable than the cabin’s was.

He takes off the cloak, wishing that his entire body wasn’t hurting like the seven hells, and then someone knocks on the door. Ser Davos gets it and Theon is baffled when he hands him a plate full of stew while holding another one to his chest.

“What –”

“The innkeeper’s wife was cooking when I walked inside. I offered them an extra piece of silver so that she’d make it for four rather than two. I’m hungry and you haven’t eaten in two days – don’t even try to thank me for it.”

Theon doesn’t and starts eating – thankfully there was a spoon in the plate already. It isn’t even good stew, in theory, but being able to chew on it without feeling pain is such a sweet feeling that he couldn’t care less about the taste. He cleans off the plate and marvels at the sensation of having a full stomach for the first time in probably a week.

As comfortable as the bed is, the following night is mostly sleepless, as well. In the morning, Ser Davos has a knowing look whenever he glances at him, but he says nothing and Theon hopes that he hasn’t screamed out loud.

\--

One hour after the ship to Harlaw sails, he’s on the rails, throwing up yesterday’s dinner. He hates this – Ironborns don’t throw up while at sea, damn it – but his stomach doesn’t listen to his prayers and doesn’t leave him alone. At least he had some water with him, but the most it does is clearing a bit the foul taste in his mouth. He wishes he knew why it gets worse the closer he gets to his destination – seeing his mother is hardly the most difficult thing he’ll ever do. Or maybe his body has decided that now is the time to stop cooperating.

He hates every second of this.

He drags himself to the pantry later, but there isn’t any food that he knows he won’t throw up again and gets out of the room empty handed. It’s late afternoon when he gets back to the cabin he’s sharing with Ser Davos – the captain said there weren’t two separate ones.

The bed would have been barely big enough for him two years ago and it’s worse than the one on the first ship. Still, he’d rather be everywhere but standing on his feet, and so he lays down on it, still feeling completely exhausted.

“I kept you awake yesterday, haven’t I?” Theon asks a moment later, looking at the ceiling rather than at his left.

“I almost died at Blackwater. Even if you had, it’d hardly be the worst thing I had to go through in my entire life.”

“Still. It just – it might happen tonight again. I wanted to –”

“Apologize in advance for something you can’t help? Don’t bother.”

Theon has no idea of how he ended up with such a decent person, but he isn’t complaining about it.

“You know, you’re tougher than you give yourself credit for,” Ser Davos says after a long pause. Minutes, probably.

“What?”

“Lad, I know grown men who’d have killed themselves if they went through what happened to you. Think about that and stop worrying about ruining my nights. And if it makes you feel better, this is most probably the least dangerous mission my liege lord sent me on since the war started.”

He stands up then, probably to get something to eat, and Theon wishes he could just take Ser Davos’s advice and see the good side of things. He’s still alive after all, and he’ll probably stay alive for longer than he had thought. And Robb doesn’t hate him, or not as much as he should.

He wishes it was enough. He isn’t sure that it is.

\--

When the ship finally docks, Theon feels so exhausted that he can barely stand up. His feet hurt, his entire body hurts in places he hadn’t known existed one life ago, he could sleep for one entire day. When he sees that his uncle has sent them a couple of people to escort them to the castle, along with two horses, he forces himself to mount one and it takes more effort than it should.

The moment they arrive, he puts his foot in the wrong way when he dismounts and he’s about to fall down on the ground, but Ser Davos grabs his arm and holds him upright. Theon doesn’t thank him just because he knows it wouldn’t be welcome, but it’s there on the tip of his tongue.

They’re brought to his uncle’s solar – Theon can barely recognize him, but then again he hasn’t seen Roderik Harlaw in more than fifteen years. The impression is probably mutual.

“Your sister had told me,” his uncle mutters, “but I hadn’t thought you’d be this bad off.”

At least he isn’t looking at him as if he’s ashamed that they’re related.

He’ll take what he can get. “I could have had a better time, during the last two years,” he says, and he’s almost surprised when he hears his own tone – he hasn’t sounded that cynical in ages.

“I can’t argue on that. And I think that you should get some rest before you see her. You look like you need it.”

“Thank you,” Theon replies gratefully, because he really doesn’t think he could see his mother right now. He can barely stay upright.

“I had some rooms made ready for you and Ser… Seaworth, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Follow the servants that brought you here on the upper floor – we’ll see each other again in the morrow and then you can see her. And as bad as you look, I’m glad you’re here.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She’s my sister. And the only thing she has wanted for the last five years or so was seeing you again. I was sure she wouldn’t live to see you at all, also because we were all sure that you were dead, and – I can imagine that you didn’t have an easy journey.”

Theon doesn’t think he has an answer for that. Anything that he can think of just doesn’t cut it. He’s thankful when Ser Davos excuses the both of them, and when he’s shown his room, he can’t help thinking that at least it’s nicer than the one his father had given him on Pyke.

\--

Maybe it’s because he’s exhausted, but the next morning he wakes up from a dreamless sleep that must have lasted at least twelve hours. He asks a maid for a bath and clean clothes, and he takes his time with it when it’s brought over to his room. He doesn’t like going too long without bathing, lately. He puts on the blissfully warm clothes and doesn’t shave off the stubble from his cheeks. It wouldn’t be a good idea since he can’t seem able to hold a knife without his hands starting to shake. But apart from that, the stubble is actually growing out dark, and while it clashes with his hair, it’s still good to know that at least some of his hair is still the right color.

When he looks at himself, he doesn’t exactly like what he sees any better, but at least he doesn’t look as if he had just had a run-in with the Stranger himself. Not that he believes in that one, but it was a good analogy.

He finds Ser Davos standing out of the room. “You didn’t have to wait,” Theon mutters.

“You look good,” Ser Davos says, and Theon finds himself without an answer.

A maid leads them to a room where they find some food, but Theon’s stomach is in twists and he doesn’t think he can eat. Ser Davos doesn’t say anything, but he steals another lemoncake and puts it in his pocket.

Theon heads for his uncle’s solar – he finds him reading a book. It doesn’t surprise him at all.

“Oh, there you are. You look a tad better than yesterday.”

“Are you sure that – that it isn’t going to make things worse?”

His uncle shrugs, but then shakes his head. “She keeps her room dark most of the time. If you don’t touch her with that left hand of yours, maybe she’ll just think that you’re too thin. And that said, she keeps on talking about you as if you were still ten. Regardless of how you look, you’d have disappointed her on that stance anyway.”

Theon doesn’t find it much of a consolation, but he doesn’t say it. They have to walk through too many stairs for him to count, and his feet are hurting so much by the time they climbed the last row that he wants to scream. His uncle stops in front of the door and sighs deeply.

“She’s in here. Do you want someone to come in with you?”

“No. I – I think I can handle it. At worst she won’t recognize me, after all.”

His uncle nods and Theon takes a breath before opening the door.

\--

The room is dark – the windows are closed and there are just some candles burning.

Maybe in this light (or lack thereof) he could pass for – well. Someone looking the way he’s supposed to.

“Is there someone?” comes from a bed on the left. Theon hadn’t even noticed that his mother was on it – the light is terrible and the person lying on the mattress is a lot smaller and thinner than he remembered.

Then again, he hasn’t seen her in twelve years.

“Yes,” he answers, swallowing.

“Do you know where he is?” his mother asks, her voice almost pleading. Theon moves closer to the bed, grabbing a candle from the nearest table.

“Who, my lady?”

“Where’s Theon? Where’s my baby boy?”

For a moment, his hand shakes so hard that he almost drops the candle to the ground.

He breathes in, once. Then twice. Then he sits on the bed’s edge, bringing the candle higher, so that he can see her face.

For a horrible moment, he’s reminded of himself. He remembers a strong, tall woman with fierce eyes, not this old woman who has ghastly white hair and looks as thin as he was when he walked out of the Dreadfort. He swallows, hoping that the darkness is enough to make him pass for the person he was two years ago.

“He’s here,” he finally says.

“He is? _Where_?” she answers, her voice higher, her eyes wide.

“In front of you,” he whispers. “Mother. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” He moves the candle so that it’s closer to his face and so that the most visible part of him is his eyes. For a horrible, long moment he thinks that she won’t believe him, that she won’t recognize him. He thinks about Robb telling him that if anyone would know him, it’d be her (except that it isn’t true. Robb had known him, too.)

He breathes in when she raises her hand to his cheek, praying that she doesn’t start wondering why she can feel more bones than it’d be proper.

“Gods,” she whispers, almost awed. “It _is_ you.” She runs her thumb under his eyes and he’s tempted to raise a hand to touch hers, but he’s holding the candle with his right. He doesn’t move an inch. “But – how long has it been? You’re no green boy anymore.”

 _I wish I were_ , he thinks bitterly. “It’s been twelve years,” he answers, and doesn’t say that he’s been back to Pyke once already. He moves the candle to his left hand, hoping that he manages to keep it upright with just three fingers, and then he puts his right on her shoulder. “I’m sorry – I wish I could have come sooner, but –”

“But your father sent you reaving, didn’t he?”

For a moment he’s too stunned to answer.

“Your sister told me that. One of the last times she was here. I hadn’t realized that you could do that already,” she says, sounding as if she’s realizing now that he’s not ten anymore. “Will you open the windows?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Open the windows. I want to _see_ you,” she says, and if he had still gods, he’d curse them one by one. Of course she’d ask.

“Very well.” He stands up, putting the candle on the nightstand, and then goes to open the shutters. It’s morning outside – if only it had been the evening. As pale sunlight pours inside the room, he tries to tell himself that maybe it’s all just in his head. She can’t see his feet, and the stubble is covering most of his face, so at worst she’ll see his hand and he can pass that for a war wound. He’s wearing four layers of clothes and he has a cloak over them, so she can’t see how thin he is. His hair, though – there’s no way to hide that. He breathes in deeply and then turns back towards her, going back to the bed and sitting on the edge.

Her eyes widen when she sees him fully.

As if he could fool her.

He isn’t surprised when she grabs his hand, with more force than a woman in her condition should have.

“What is _this_?”

Good question. How do you tell your old, sick mother that you were captured, thrown in a dungeon and tortured for the better part of a year?

“I was in a war,” he settles on. “That – that happens. It’s not so bad.” It’s a lie, it is bad, but it’s also not the worst he’s ever told.

“ _Who_ did that to you?”

“They’re dead. It doesn’t matter.” He tries to make himself sound as if he really believes that. “Really. It doesn’t.”

“It wasn’t – it wasn’t that man who took you away?”

Theon almost laughs at the idea of Ned Stark doing something like that. Ned Stark would have just killed him quickly and mercifully, if he had had to.

“No. No, it was someone else. That man died long before it happened. And – he wasn’t too bad to me.” _Better than my own father was_ , but he doesn’t say just that. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come before,” he blurts then. “I was – it was before that happened.” He nods towards his hand, and then she squeezes his fingers, and he hadn’t expected it.

“I saw you again before my time comes. It doesn’t matter how you look.” And she looks so happy, her eyes almost wet, and Theon has to fight the urge not to let himself cry. He can’t do that – if he does, then he doesn’t know what he might say (and regret saying).

“But there’s something you aren’t telling me,” she adds a moment later.

“Mother, I –”

“I can see it in your eyes. What is that?”

“It’s – it’s just, I can’t stay for long. Or for good.”

She shakes her head, her hand reaching up. She brushes a couple of strands of silver hair from his forehead and he thinks that he might cry. For real.

“Let me guess, you’re still someone’s prisoner.”

He swallows, wishing it didn’t have to be like this. “Technically. But – it’s – I was someone else’s prisoner before. The person who did that,” he says staring down at his maimed hand. “The person who rescued me didn’t have other choices.”

“And they let you come here?”

“I asked.” He breathes in again. He feels as if he’s going to faint.

“But you can stay for some time?”

“I can,” he replies, his heart in his throat.

“Then I suppose I’ll be happy with it,” she replies, and she still looks so happy that Theon can’t help smiling back at her. He’s careful not to show his teeth.

\--

Two hours later, he leaves the room. “She’s sleeping,” he tells his uncle and Ser Davos. He hopes they haven’t been here the entire time.

“How did you find her?” Lord Rodrick asks.

“Better than I imagined, actually. I’ll – I’ll come back in the evening. Or in the morrow. But – I think I need to eat something.” His stomach feels so empty, and the meeting has left him feeling so drained, that he doesn’t think he can postpone it anymore.

“Good, you can come with me. I was thinking to get something myself,” Ser Davos says before almost dragging him towards the stairs.

He stops only when they’re alone in one of the castle’s hallways.

“Sorry about the rudeness, but this morning some ravens arrived. One was from Lord Stark to Lord Harlaw. But another one was from Lord Stark to me. Except that it was two messages, and in one it said that the other was for you and that he addressed it to me just so that no one would ask questions. I figured you’d want it.”

Ser Davos hands him the message and Theon takes it with shaking hands. “I think I’ll eat first,” he whispers then – he isn’t sure he can deal with it on top of everything. Ser Davos nods and they head to the kitchens.

\--

His stomach is full for the first time since the inn at Pyke when he opens Robb’s message.

_Your uncle sent me a raven explaining the situation. Stay there as long as you think you need. I’ll be in Riverrun for the foreseeable future – when you come back, come here unless I write with a change of location. Also, you might want to know that Lord Manderly was hiding my brother Rickon in White Arbor, along with your former squire._

_I’m still waiting._

_Robb._

He tries to school his face into showing neutrality – the last thing he needs is losing it completely in front of someone else. He folds the piece of paper, puts it in a pocket in the shirt he’s wearing and makes sure that it can’t get lost.

That night, after waking up with cold sweat all over his face, he reads it again and falls asleep clutching it between his fingers.

\--

The first day was a good one, apparently. In the following ones, he learns never to expect the same from his mother. The second time he comes in, she refuses to believe that it’s him – her son is ten, not a man grown. The third, she recognizes him again and it’s the same as the first all over again.

The worst is the fifth. When she asks him if he’s back for good, he says that he can’t – he has to go back.

“To Ned Stark?” she asks, sounding resigned, and Theon’s blood chills when he understands that she probably thinks him fourteen or fifteen and that he’s here because of some kind of leave.

It’s not that different from the truth, but he learned that if it isn’t a good day, the best way to go is seconding her.

“Yes,” he breathes out.

“Is he treating you well, at least?”

He breathes in twice. Gods, he can’t do this. He can’t.

But he has to. “Better than most would have.”

“But you must feel so alone,” she says, and suddenly he feels as if someone put a knife through his heart.

“Don’t – don’t concern yourself. I have – I have a friend,” he forces out from his lips. _The only one I ever had_ , he thinks, _and look where we are now_.

He’s kind of wary now - who says she won’t lash out? His father surely wouldn’t have liked to hear about him getting friendly with northerners.

“Oh,” she says instead, sounding relieved. “I was worried that you would be left on your own. And how is your friend?”

He has to keep it together until this is over. He breathes in, trying to calm down, trying to school his voice into not breaking. “He - he looks up at me. It’s like having a younger brother.”

He bites down on his tongue the moment he says that. He shouldn’t have, he shouldn’t have, the last time he did say it, it earned him -

“Oh, Theon, I’m so glad you aren’t entirely miserable in that cold, far place,” she says instead.

“I am, too,” he answers, managing not to choke on his own words, and when she grabs his whole hand he has to breathe in deeply as he thinks _I won’t bolt, I won’t bolt, I won’t bolt._

When he gets back to his room that night, his entire frame is shaking so hard that it hurts, and he hopes no one hears him when he grabs his pillow, smashes it against his face and cries bitter tears into it until he feels spent. It’s too much. Knowing that at least someone in his family wouldn’t have begrudged him for his friendship with Robb was only the starting point, but then he thinks about everything he did wrong, about Robb’s hands on him when they both were young and they had no idea of what would happen, of Robb’s hands on him now, about the Dreadfort, about how wrong this entire thing is. And the more memories come to mind, the harder he cries, hating that he’s doing it and hating that his tears taste like fucking salt.

He doesn’t know how much longer he can pretend that it’s getting better.

Because it’s not.

\--

Ser Davos shows up at his door with a plate of food a good hour after dinner time; Theon takes it wordlessly and lets him in. Stew all over again, though at least there are some potatoes in it.

“You know,” Ser Davos says while he swallows the first bite, “I don’t understand if being here is good for you or not.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the first time after you saw her, you looked ten years younger. Now you look ten years older. I don’t know how it is, but it can’t be healthy.”

“That’s not really the point,” Theon replies. “I appreciate your concern. But I got through worse than this.”

“I won’t argue about it. But you owe yourself better.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“I mean that you survived until now and your liege lord hasn’t deemed your crimes enough to kill you. You can do something with your life, and hopefully you’ll make better choices, but the way it seems to me, you’re just torturing yourself. And I don’t mean the parts of it that you can’t help.”

“Maybe, but don’t I deserve that?”

“And what would the person who cut off your fingers deserve, according to you?”

Theon shudders so hard that the plate almost falls from his lap into the ground. “That’s not – that’s not –”

“It _is_. Will you hear me for a minute?”

Theon gives him a shaky nod and puts away the plate. He doesn’t think he can eat now.

“From what your liege lord, your uncle and your sister told me, and from what I gather, it seems to me that the worst consequences of what you did came from what you _didn’t_ do. Killing the Stark children, I mean. Now, why the hell did you even fake that?”

Theon snorts, looking down at his hands. “Because it couldn’t look like I had lost them. And no one would have questioned my alliances any more. _I_ should have questioned them, probably, but I can’t even remember how I was reasoning.”

“Let me ask you something else. You did it because your father didn’t trust you, didn’t you?”

“He said he couldn’t know if the Starks had made me theirs.” He’s surprised at how bitter his voice sounds.

“Right, and whose fault was it that you spent ten years in Winterfell in the first place?”

Theon swallows twice before answering. “Well, his. But –”

“You were nine. Don’t tell me that you chose that. I fought that war, too. And it was his responsibility, not yours. You made wrong choices, but he had no right to distrust you because of something that was his own doing.”

“Ser, you can’t be suggesting that it wasn’t my fault. Or that it justifies what I did.”

“It doesn’t justify what you did, but it explains it. Everyone would want their family to trust them. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

It’s not that he never _knew_ that, but hearing someone else acknowledging it out loud instead of assuming that he was the worst kind of turncloak is almost a shock. He goes rigid, closes his eyes, tries to think about it. He knows it’s true, rationally. He never started that war, he never asked to be taken away, and when at Winterfell he had tried to get by and he hadn’t refused Robb’s friendship just because he was Ned Stark’s son, but what could he have done? He never was close to his dead brothers and he was alone in an unknown place, knowing he could die any moment – should he have kept even more to himself just to honor two dead people of whom he had no fond memory even back then?

“You still have a life in front of you,” Ser Davos says. “If I were you, I’d use it to make up for what I did rather than torment myself for things that I can’t change.”

When Theon opens his eyes again, the Onion Knight is gone and his words are still echoing in the room.

 _He’s right. He’s right, and you know it. You can’t let shadows rule your life._ But it’s easier said and thought than done, isn’t it?

He takes Robb’s message out of his pocket again. The paper is ruined and crumpled, but it’s still readable.

_I’m still waiting._

Not for much longer. He can’t do more for his mother than what he already has, and he can’t take the constant wind and rain anymore. He can’t take the sight of the ocean. He needs to go back where Robb is, and if things can’t be as they were, he doesn’t care.

\--

Asha docks at Harlaw the day before his ship is set to sail, one week later. She comes to find him in the evening.

“She looks better.”

“I know. But I cannot – I cannot stay longer. I did all that I could.” On the last time he had said he had to go - she had just smiled at him, said that she was grateful he came at all. He can still feel her lips on his brow, and he only regrets that she had thought it was the first time they had seen each other in the rest of the week.

But at least his conscience won’t come back to haunt him for not having even seen his mother before she died.

“I know,” Asha says, sighing. “The kingsmoot is to be held again in a couple of weeks, and our uncles have disappeared with their promises about dragons. _Dragons_. It shouldn’t be hard. Are you sure that –”

“Sister, no. It’s – it’s not my place anymore. And you know that.”

“It always was with him, wasn’t it?”

Theon figures that silence should be enough of an answer. He stands up, looks at her. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t – he was my friend. And I couldn’t have survived ten years there without one. I know what Father thought, but you can’t ask me to betray him again. I won’t do it.”

“That’s not what I’m asking. He’s – he’s a better man that I’d like to admit. And I can’t begrudge you if you want to go back. I don’t understand how can you want to be in chains, but that’s not for me to judge.”

“Sister, of course you can’t understand it. And I hope for you that you never will.”

She nods softly, her hand on his wrist; she wishes him good luck, and then she’s gone.

\--

No one is waiting for them when they arrive at Seagard, but it’s not as if Theon hadn’t expected it. It’s early in the morning and he hasn’t slept much during the night either – no news whatsoever.

“Well,” Ser Davos says after they’re back on the ground, “we can either find an inn or go straight for Riverrun. It’s a day or so from here. Your choice.”

“Let’s go for Riverrun.” He won’t rest anyway, and maybe if he’s tired enough when he gets to the castle, he’ll sleep through the night. It’s not as if Robb will – no. Better not to think about it. He won’t. And even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. Theon can’t expect Robb to leave his wife’s bed for his. It would be ludicrous.

Ser Davos goes to find them horses and Theon only wants this to end. He feels drained in every possible sense and he can’t do this for much longer.

\--

At some time that has to be close to midnight, he finally sees Riverrun in front of him, the gate just a mile away. Good, because he can barely keep himself upright. Ser Davos stops, though, and Theon does too when he sees that there are men coming towards them.

“Lord Stark will be expecting us.” Ser Davos hands the guard a parchment and they let them pass. They leave the horses in the courtyard and they’re told to go to the solar – more stairs, obviously. They climb up in silence until they arrive at the door. Ser Davos is about to knock when Theon stops him. He’s tired, and his feet hurt so much he’s this close to screaming, but he has to do this while they’re still alone.

“Ser, just one thing.”

“Yes?”

“I know you were doing your duty and that you don’t want to hear it, but… you have my thanks nonetheless. Other men would have merely made sure I wasn’t trying to escape.” His lips feel dry and he isn’t sure that this is what he had meant altogether, but then Ser Davos gives him a slight nod and Theon figures he understood.

“I’ll accept your thanks. Just this once.”

Then he knocks on the door and opens it.

Robb is sitting at his grandfather’s desk and he looks a lot worse than Theon remembers. More or less like someone who hasn’t slept for two weeks straight. There’s an assortment of overthrown maps on the table, as if he has been going through them for a while, and his face is carefully blank when he sees the two of them. Then he focuses on Ser Davos and his tone is impeccably courteous.

“Ser, my thanks for doing this.”

“Don’t concern yourself, Your Grace. It was no hardship.”

“Still, I owe you. Your king went back to Storm’s End, but we agreed to see each other again to discuss a strategy here in a week’s time. I supposed that you would only tire yourself for nothing if you tried to join him there, so I had a room prepared for you until he comes back. I’ll send him a raven on the morrow – there’s a servant outside who is going to show you your quarters.”

“Obligated, Your Grace. I think I’ll accept your offer and turn in.” He bows quickly before leaving, and the moment he’s out of the room, Robb’s shoulders sag down before he turns towards Theon again.

“Sorry if I was ignoring you, but –”

“He knows,” Theon replies softly.

“Excuse me?”

“He told me at some point during that trip. I mean, he understood that you care more than you should.” He feels his cheeks burning as he says it.

Robb sighs, moving closer. “Do I have to bribe him?”

“No, you don’t. He won’t tell. He’s not the kind of man who does.”

“Good. And how are you?”

Good question. “I’ve been better. And I’ve been worse. But I had to go – thank you.”

“You came back, didn’t you?”

Theon swallows, _of course I did, of course I would_ , and then Robb is inches from him and his hand goes to Theon’s cheek and it’s so blissfully warm and rough and gentle, and he hadn’t expected this, but it beats the welcome he got when he went back home both times.

“I don’t know who fixed your teeth, but they don’t look half bad. Do you want to eat something or you’d rather turn in?”

“I – I can eat tomorrow. I’m too tired. But listen – before that – you said something about your brother?” He hates to bring up something that might make Robb mad, but he has to ask. If anything, he’ll own up to all the stupid things he did. But Robb doesn’t move away harshly as he had feared.

“I told you, he’s in White Arbor, but right now the roads are too dangerous and if I have to go fetch him, I want to go myself. At least I know he’s safe there. And there’s also… other things that happened, but it’s too late. I can tell you tomorrow. You’d fall asleep on me before I was done, anyway.”

“All right.” Robb grabs his arm and leads him out of the solar, down the stairs, through a number of hallways. Theon loses his sense of direction after the second one, and he’s barely coherent when Robb opens a door and pushes him in. Between a few candles and the moonlight, he can see that it’s a medium-sized room with a window facing the river and a fairly big bed, but that’s all he can manage.

“My own isn’t too far,” Robb says. “We’ll talk tomorrow, all right?”

“Yes. Of course.” He sounds barely coherent, but then again he _is_ barely coherent.

Then Robb is gone and the door closes softly behind him. He sighs, takes off his cloak and throws it on a chair. He gets rid of his shoes and everything that isn’t breeches and shirt, and then he gets under the covers. The bed is blissfully soft and the covers are blissfully warm, and his aching feet and back are only too grateful for it.

But it turns out that his hopes of just passing out and sleep through the night had been merely hopes – maybe twenty minutes later he wakes up barely helping himself from shouting, and he’s half-sure that he can hear someone else faintly screaming from some other place in the castle. It’s gone after a minute though – maybe he was just imagining it. He falls asleep again, but it doesn’t last long, and when he opens his eyes, he’s screaming himself raw. He shivers all over – his dreams were mostly confused, but that’s because they looked suspiciously like those few, scattered memories of that time when he was given dreamwine. He feels so dirty, and he doesn’t even fully remember why, but he can imagine that easily enough. He’s tasted enough of that medicine, if he’s right. That’s why he hopes he never remembers that fully. But with this, he knows that he’s not going to sleep again. He feels the corners of his eyes burning while his fingers clutch at the clean, white sheets. He breathes in, figuring that lying sleepless in such a comfortable bed won’t be the worst thing that happened to him, and then he hears the door open. He goes still and rigid at that, but nothing happens just after. He hears rustling, the sound of someone taking off their shoes and clothes.

For a moment nothing happens, and then the covers are raised and someone is getting into the bed and –

He turns on his side and almost screams out loud.

“Robb?” he hisses, miraculously keeping his voice low. “What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like?” Robb whispers back. “Apparently I just can’t stay away.”

“But – don’t you – doesn’t she –”

“Jeyne doesn’t need me right now. I’ll explain tomorrow. But – don’t worry. She kind of knows. I wouldn’t have slept anyway tonight, and I heard you before.”

“Robb, you don’t have to –” he starts. He knows he should refuse, even if it’s the last thing he wants, but he can’t say yes.

Except that Robb puts a finger on his mouth instead of letting him finish. “Shut up. I know I shouldn’t do this, but I’ve known that since Winterfell. And I know that you need it. It’s fine. It took me long enough to come to terms with it, but that’s how it is.”

It’s the end of any fight he had left in him. The moment Robb says that, Robb’s hands go to his shoulders and before Theon has even registered all of it, his forehead is resting in the hollow of Robb’s neck and there isn’t an inch of space between them. He reaches back tentatively, Robb’s skin so warm under his fingertips, and he wishes he could say no. But that’s out of the question – he can’t. Not when Robb’s fingers are brushing through his hair and his lips are hovering on his forehead. He almost wants to cry in relief but he manages not to, and when Robb moves a strand of hair away from his eyes, he knows that he can’t walk away from this either.

“There are things I should tell you,” he whispers. Maybe Robb deserves to know why he’s stuck here doing this, why he can’t rest decently for more than two nights in a row, and maybe he should tell someone instead of keeping it buried deep down when it won’t just stay there.

“No doubts, but they can wait another day. You’re exhausted. Just fucking stop thinking already, won’t you?”

It’s pathetic, that the moment Robb asks, all his resolve crumples down and he lets his eyes close. But he stopped caring about that long ago. He falls asleep with Robb’s warm body that screams _home_ against his, feeling better than he has in forever, and the last thought he has before he falls into a dreamless sleep is that no matter what the rest of the world thinks, this doesn’t feel like a prison at all.


End file.
